The Effects of Starvation, Cannibalism and injuries on the players body and using the natural enviroment to your advantage.

[Veteran Child 6]

The Effects of Starvation, Cannibalism and injuries on the players body and using the natural enviroment to your advantage.

 

Players have only one physical body condition which is that the players physique is at its peak with well defined muscles and minimal body fat. Yes your character can become unhealthy from lack of food/drink, blood loss and eating rotten food but it doesn't really show any effect to other players, merely that you get a grey tinted screen and sometimes a cough.

 

I feel that the choices a player makes in-game to survive the zombie apocalypse should be reflected on their character. An idea being that when your character is starving, they will begin to lose weight and muscle; making them more thin, weak and overall a more vulnerable player to the harsh enviroment of DayZ (e.g their bones could break quicker/easier, take less damage to die and they become tired more easily). The same with cannibals being just slightly thinner and slightly weaker than non-cannibals who stick to animals and canned goods for food sources, perhaps even implementing the disease Kuru into the game for those who eat human meat (for those who may not know, Kuru is a disease that is known to affect cannibals. It causes shakiness in its sufferers due to the consumption of human meat meaning that aiming down sights and stuff would be a bit more difficult. Even though the disease was found in the Fore tribes of Eastern Highlands and lowlands Provinces of Papua New Guinea in the 1950's, it's still an idea as to having a strong negative effect for those who turn to cannibalism) also for cannibals, they could look very similar to regular survivors that eat animals and canned goods but will look more hollow and evil looking, even with a bit of blood on their face or something.

 

With getting injured from melee weapons, gunshot wounds and zombies, I think scars should become a thing in the game as to show players as a more roughed up/survivory looking and that they've been through some bad situations.

 

Camoflage and Baiting.

 

Another thought is that you could use mud and moss/grass to create a thin type of camoflage that doesn't hide you nearly as well as camoflage clothing would but would just make you a fractionally less visible to zombies so that you could run into towns with a little bit less risk. Also you could use bloodbags as bait to draw zombies to certain locations.

 

I think that this would make DayZ a hell of a lot more entertaining as I can imagine that if there were a real zombie apocalypse, Cannibals, starvation and injuries would be a much greater threat to surviving in this new, hostile world as resources such as canned foods and animals depleted, resulting in having to make the hard choice as to choose between keeping your morals and starving until you possibly find another animal/canned food or to choose to go cannibal to keep your strength up but at the cost of your morality/humanity + the high risk of getting the disease 'Kuru'.

 

Please let me know what you think as I'm keen to get some feedback.

Thanks for reading.

Edited August 10, 2014 by Veteran Child

[d.walker43 196]

I like what you have to contribute, would definently add another option as to what path you can take in this crazy game. I personally would probably not become a cannibal, but would for sure use the camouflage and such and live off the land in the woods. Would also be fun to go cannibal-hunting in high-pop areas. Good ideas, I like em all.

[Parazight 1599]

While I appreciate a thought out post, I think what you're suggesting is too complex.  I don't think this system is necessary. 

[pale1776 375]

I heard blood bags luring zombies, and immediately thought of I Am Legend.

Beanz for you.

[King Raptor 191]

Cannibalism! Yes.

I also would like to run around in a suit made of freshspawns that I killed.

[Avant-Garde 229]

Imagine, you see someone getting into a building, you proceed to throw some bloodbags in said building and watch the horde taking over the place with the dude inside. All this, of course, just for the lols of killing someone using bloodbags and zombies. It would create many possibilities in ambushing people

 

I aprove this very much

Edited August 10, 2014 by Avant-Garde

[scriptfactory 620]

Why do we think it's ok to add completely new systems, that need to be balanced, to DayZ. The health system is fine as is. Just balance is needed.

 

Increasing health to at least 50k while leaving blood @ 5k would help the game, IMO. This would increase the length of firefights and more skilled players would still get more kills because of headshots. Medics would be more important use since administering IVs (to increase blood) would become useful during the firefight, not just after it. Health should still increase at a rate of 1 HP per second. There is your progression.

 

Also, make it impossible to bandage after being shot by a crossbow until the bolt is removed. So you bleed until you can remove the bolt and then bandage. And the bolt does extra damage when being removed.

[liquidcactus 719]

Cannibalism for sure ! I can see cannibalism being apart of the game in the future.. I think they will add it but not 100% sure on this as it will ad more reason to KOS but WHATEVER..

 

And I like your suggestions too, if you decide to eat people, after some time you look a pinch different, more withdrawn and the blood on your face like you explained... now as I am all for non game controlling elements like most other dayz lovers I think adding some creepy looking physical effects to a cannibal player would be really nice.. very subtle effects of course but effects none the less..

 

But like I said.. If being a cannibal style player is your choice, I doubt they will force a certain " look " upon your character for choosing to play that way as the developers know that the community and themselves dont really want any over controlling factors in the game just for choosing a specific play style and thats what most of dayz is about ! :D

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Kuru.

[Zboub le météor 250]

i like this idea !

 

starvation should makes you a little bit weaker. eating only meat shouldn't be enought to be healthy. eating human meat should be as nutritive as animal meat, but eating meat and carbohydrate rich nutriment such as cereals/rice/canned peach shoul makes you a little bit stronger. Kuru disease is a good idea, but only if the chances to get this disease are low (5%-10% chances ?) or players won't do it.

 

eaten human players should show some mutilations and/or be partially skinned, it would add some horror needed in this game. i can imagine the creepy feeling we could get from seeing a poor bastard skinned on the side of the east coast road.

 

cannibalism will give us some awfull (but unforgetable) experience, i can imagine a group of cannibals taking hostages and force feed thoses peoples with their friends meat

Edited October 31, 2014 by Zboub le météor

[arlingtine 27]

There have been canibals forever. Just becaus among a tribe in the 50s they found kuru doesnt mean it should be added. They probably had some genetic defect or werent cooking properly. There should be no health downsides to being a canibal. Though i do agree with blood on face that would let people know what they were running into but not until they were already close. People should not be penalized for having a certain playstile diversity in how u play the game should be encouraged

[stielhandgranate 480]

Kuru.

 

There we have it! One of the Developers dropping a hint that cannibalism and Kuru will be implemented at a later time. I for one look forward to seeing other players have trembling hands and fingers from eating humans.

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

Some good ideas but cannibalism for example had been suggested and discussed heavily in the past. As for the body condition stuff at the top of the post I agree in principle but disagree with your details. Malnutrition will make you more fatiguable, certainly more prone to disease, but will take a long time to reduce bone density (our bodies are particularly good at preserving calcium and phosphate). I argued for a more authentic nutrition system (see one of the ideas in my signature) monitoring protein, calorie and micronutrient levels and for body shape that changes with long term nutrition but didn't get a lot of traction.

Regarding Kuru I believe this is a prion disease (as per mad cow) but these take a long time to manifest symptoms. Also plenty of other peoples in PNG without suffering from neurodegenerative disorders. Human meat is like other meat and if you eat it it will provide ample calories and protein so I disagree with your character looking more gaunt. I think cannibalism should remain an ethical challenge for the player rather than something that affects the character.